Kyle Dubas’s routine end of season press conference yesterday went about as expected. Always a measured and composed speaker, Dubas gave credit to the team for having a good year but lamented some areas that he still needed to address to make them better. Dubas cited seeing teams like Colorado, Minnesota and especially using division winner Carolina as a measuring stick to show the gap that exists between his team and the true elite’s of the league.
Dubas would go onto mostly praise the development
process of the younger players in the organization and reinforce feelings and high hopes of strong futures that the organization has for players like Ben Kindel, Harrison Brunicke, Sergei Murashov, Arturs Silovs, Will Horcoff and Bill Zonnon.
When talking about whether or not the Penguins had enough truly high-end talent internally to continue to progress, Dubas then used interesting phrasing to paint Pittsburgh as a destination franchise and great spot for players. Given that the team made the playoffs, has a ton of cap space to spend, got positive player-friendly coaching input from Dan Muse that helped many have career-best seasons and still has Sidney Crosby, it’s not as tough of a sell as it might have been 12 months ago. The quote looked striking.
“I think if you’re one of those players that’s a free agent or your situation in your spot is not going well and you have some control, you can look at us and see very clearly that you’re going to be supported by a great coaching staff that gets the most out of players,” Dubas said. “But you’ll also have young players that are going to push from behind and older players that are going to set the tone.”
It’s more curious still when Dubas practically ruled out bringing in high-price, Grade A type of free agents. I wouldn’t expect to see the Penguins be the team to sign a top-in-class UFA like Alex Tuch or Darren Raddysh to a massive deal on July 1.
“I don’t want to look back in a year or two or three and say, ‘Geez, now we’re costing ourselves with these deals that we overpaid for in the summer of 2026 because we had it,’” Dubas said. “It may not be as big of a July as everyone wants, but it’s planting the seeds to make things come to fruition in the long run.”
That can swing the onus back to situations where players are under contract and would have to be acquired via trade. For tampering purposes and common sense reasons, Dubas isn’t going to be direct to the point of naming names for specific players.
We, however, can name names. Auston Matthews, unsure about Toronto’s future? How about rejoining Dubas, Jason Spezza and a ton of back office people from the Leafs in a less-pressure situation of the Penguins! Brady Tkachuk, sure sounds like you’re tired of being Ottawa, no? We made the playoffs last year! Jason Robertson, how ya doin’ in Dallas where they’ve been slow to pay you up on a long-term commitment? Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas you guys with a full NTC want to get out of St. Louis and put the rumors behind with a fresh start? Connor McD— ok that’s a bridge too far even in the wildest fantasies, but you get the point.
Those are huge names and while there’s no guarantees any of them will even change teams this off-season, it’s interesting to know the Penguins look willing to play ball on making some kind of move in this type of range to target in a top talent that has some form of trade protection that would choose Pittsburgh (and thus tamp down the trade cost in a limited circumstance).
In some ways, it’s the next evolution of Dubas’s ‘red paperclip’ strategy. Sure it’s nice to add Elmer Soderblom and Egor Chinakhov for mid-round picks as players with more upside than they’ve shown in the NHL. Now it’s time to level up and try to go big game hunting. The word ‘try’ might be the most important word in that last sentence, it’s fun to dream but far from guaranteed on the timing to pull off a major move immediately.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented, Erik Karlsson had control over his situation and chose to join the Pens in 2023. Across the league, Matthew Tkachuk virtually called his own shot on making his intentions known that Florida was the team he wanted to sign with in a move that helped propel the Panthers to the top. A decade ago it was Phil Kessel doing the same, though he had less control over the situation with his limited no trade clause. Franchise altering types of players do occasionally change teams over the summer in offseason trades.
If you want to go far, you need those impact players. Dubas admitted he would like some prime age talent in that mid-20s range and practically made an open sales pitch yesterday as to why that category of player ought to be interested in the Penguins. Taking the step to connect is uncertain and never a guarantee but it looks like one Pittsburgh will be attempting to do if they can get all the stars to align.
